North Solihull Community Diagnostic Centre is the first in the Midlands to be based in a shopping centre
16:28, 14 May 2025Updated 16:34, 14 May 2025
Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock at North Solihull Community Diagnostic Centre. Pic: Gurdip Thandi LDR
A new £15 million NHS centre in Solihull has been unveiled aimed at easing pressure on stretched hospitals and GP services.
Minister of State of Care, Stephen Kinnock, officially opened the North Solihull Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC), which is based in Chelmsley Wood Shopping Centre.
The CDC employs 70 staff and is open 8am-8pm seven days a week and is the first in the Midlands to be based in a retail setting.
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Bosses said the aim of the centre is to ease pressure on hospitals and GP services and help speed up diagnosis and treatment for patients.
It features state-of-the-art facilities latest cutting-edge diagnostic imaging technology for X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound and other health screening including endoscopy.
It has been open to the community for three weeks and so far more than 1,100 people and is expected to deliver 65,000 tests per year.
One of the first patients to be offered a scan for back issues he has suffered for decades with 65-year-old Tim Denton-Hawkes.
Solihull resident Tim Denton-Hawkes at the new North Solihull Community Diagnostic Centre.
He said: “I think it’s a brilliant idea. I’m a great believer in not wasting things and if you’ve got empty properties within an area which is local to the borough, then why not?
“It will save a hell of a lot of money rather than building new and starting afresh.
“I’ve been waiting for a scan for about six months. Over the years, I’ve had acupuncture on two or three occasions but it didn’t have a lasting effect.
“I’ve had MRI in the past – two on the lower back. Initially, the first was around about 30 years ago. I know the quality of X-rays have increased and I’m hoping they’ll find something for which there is an operation to cure it.”
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Mr Kinnock said: “I’m really impressed by this fantastic facility. It’s so great to see it is really embedded in the community, part of the shopping centre.
“It’s hugely convenient for people and there’s three hours of free parking, you can come and do your shopping, get a coffee and then get your scan.
“That’s really important because that convenience is going to mean you’ll get more people finding it very easy to come here and that’s really good for patient outcomes.
“That will lead to earlier interventions, people getting a check-up will find it easier to be referred in here by GPs or specialists.
“It gives people more control because they know the data generated here through the digital imaging is now integrated with secondary care so a specialist can see the digital imaging in real time and that gives a really good sense of control.
“If action is required really quickly, that will be helped by it being integrated with secondary care.
“It will benefit services hugely. Everything happening here is not happening in a hospital. Therefore, much more capacity is free up in hospitals.
“There is so much pressure on hospitals we need to find ways of shifting care from hospitals to community, we need to shift care from sickness to prevention and we need to shift it from analogue to digital. This place embodies all three of those shifts.”
Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock at North Solihull Community Diagnostic Centre. Pic: Gurdip Thandi LDR
He added: “We have 169 CDC across the country and we’re committed to having more. We believe this is a model that’s really working and has got untapped potential.
“We want to see this level of accessibility – this place is open from 8am to 8pm seven days a week.
“People who have got busy lives and working shifts, it’s going to be so much easier for them to come in here and have this scan.”
Martin Richardson, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust’s Hospital Executive Director at Solihull Hospital added: “This new centre will improve access to important scans and diagnostic tests for local patients in a purpose-built environment away from a main hospital setting.
“This will facilitate rapid GP direct access as well as providing non-urgent hospital diagnostics closer to communities. In addition, through offering a range of diagnostic tests and screenings, it will help to support early disease detection and prevention, ultimately improving future health outcomes for those in North Solihull and the wider Solihull and Birmingham area.”